Radioactive Waste

Radioactive waste from scrapped nuclear submarines leaked from a storage drum aboard an aging tanker in Russia's Far East, and the Pacific Fleet apparently covered up the accident, officials said Thursday.The 45 gallons of waste that spilled on board the tanker in the Bay of Pavlovsk released dangerous levels of radiation, said Sergei Lishavsky of the Primorsky region's environment committee.But sailors cleaned it up and no one was injured. ''This was just a minor nuclear accident,'' Lishavsky said.

Lake County's Housing Services Division is offering eligible citizens help with obtaining mobility access ramps for the physically disabled. The Mobility Ramp Program uses community development block grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay for mobility ramps for homeowners with a medical condition or disability that makes it difficult to navigate steps. To qualify, the property must be homesteaded and the family must meet certain income requirements.

A Russian navy convoy began pumping liquid radioactive waste into the Japan Sea early Sunday, the environmental group Greenpeace said.Monitors on a Greenpeace vessel shadowing the three Russian ships said they measured radiation in the air near the dump site at 10 times background levels when the dumping began at about 8 a.m.Greenpeace said the ships arrived at the dump site, 338 miles west of Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, about midnight.John...

W.T. Bland Public Library is offering free special performances during the summer for all ages at 2 p.m. every Thursday through July 31 in the Mount Dora Community Building, 520 N., Baker St. Scheduled programs are: •Thursday, John Storms and His World of Reptiles featuring lizards, skinks and snakes. •June 19, professional storyteller and puppeteer Katie Adams will bring sea stories to life with colorful props and audience participation. •June 26, Finn and Fiona's whimsical presentation will feature tales and music from Celtic lands.

NANCY, France -- A French nuclear protester died Sunday in eastern France after his leg was severed by a train carrying radioactive waste to Germany, officials said. Paramedics quickly cared for protester Sebastien Briat, 21, after the incident near the town of Avricourt, but he died on way to a nearby hospital, officials said. He had been caught by surprise by the train while trying to chain himself to the tracks as part of a protest.

A Senate panel Thursday passed a bill to build a temporary dump in Yucca Mountain, Nev., for radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors, but the Clinton administration has threatened to veto the measure. The Senate Energy Committee voted 15-5 in favor of the bill, which calls for having a site ready in 1999 in the Nevada desert to start accepting waste that is accumulating near nuclear plants across the country.

A radioactive waste storage facility at a state-run nuclear reprocessing plant northeast of Tokyo leaked low-level radiation over a period of about 30 years, a nuclear official said Tuesday. The radiation leaked from about 2,000 drums each containing 53 gallons of low-level radioactive waste produced by uranium processing at the facility. A spokesman said the waste was ''not dangerous.''

The director of a commission trying to set up a regional radioactive waste storage site has been fired after being charged with embezzling $600,000 to buy himself sports cars, a Rolex watch and furniture. The Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission voted to fire Ray Peery rather than accept his resignation. The commission is in charge of building a $100 million reinforced concrete warehouse to store waste from Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Kansas. Peery, 40, has been charged with theft and money laundering.

RADIOACTIVE WASTE. Gov. Cecil Andrus on Wednesday banned shipments of low-level radioactive waste into Idaho until the federal government opens a permanent repository. ''Any of this waste will be stopped at the border,'' Andrus said. He accused the government of welshing on promises to move millions of cubic feet of temporarily stored waste. Andrus told Energy Secretary John Herrington of the ban after returning from a tour of the government's proposed Waste Isolation Pilot Project repository in New Mexico.

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Russia has agreed to take 21/2 tons of spent fuel from a closed Serbian nuclear reactor to ensure the radioactive waste does not end up in terrorist hands, Serbia's science minister said Monday. About 8,000 spent fuel rods from the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Vinca, outside Belgrade, will be transported under a $10 million deal signed last week, Science Minister Aleksandar Popovic said.

For the benefit of those residents who may have unwanted items in their home that they can't put out with their regular trash, t he Lake County Solid Waste Division is sending a special mobile unit into Clermont on March 27. Conducted in partnership with the Lake County Sheriff's Office, all Lake County residents are invited to stop by the mobile unit and dispose of any unwanted household hazardous materials and medications in both a safe...

Johnny Taylor hears it all the time. Residents of the Four Corners area south of Clermont have household items they need to get rid of, but no clue where to take their paint cans, used motor oil, pool chemicals, and so on. Taylor, the hazardous waste and recycling supervisor for the Lake County Solid Waste Division, said he's working to get the word out to residents that they have a couple of options, including dropping them off at the drop-off hazardous...

The heat is oppressive. I turn on my air conditioner. The electricity flows in from Millstone Nuclear Power near Niantic, where high-level radioactive waste steadily accumulates on the shore of Long Island Sound . Why? Because there's nowhere else to put it. Why? A national political failure no less tragi-comic than our failure on immigration policy. Immigration cannot be left up to the states because, once inside the U.S., an immigrant can freely move from one to the other.

WASHINGTON -- On Monday the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments concerning possible -- actually, probable and various -- constitutional infirmities in Obamacare. The justices have received many amicus briefs, one of which merits special attention because of the elegant scholarship and logic with which it addresses an issue that has not been as central to the debate as it should be. Hitherto, most attention has been given to whether Congress, under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, may coerce individuals into engaging in commerce by buying health insurance.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- A government official in Congo suspected of ordering up to 17 tons of radioactive waste dumped in a river in the southeast of the country has been arrested, authorities said Friday. Environment Minister Didace Pembe would not identify the person because investigations were continuing. He said the waste belonged to a Chinese company, but it had not asked that the waste be dumped.

A novel new way of bombarding radioactive waste with atomic particles to make the waste safer was reported Wednesday during a meeting of nuclear researchers near Orlando.Scientists with the Los Alamos National Laboratory presented papers outlining their work to transform nuclear waste into forms that could be stored more easily and safely.The technique could eliminate or lower a major barrier to the growth of nuclear power in the United States.The papers were presented during the American Nuclear Society convention, which concludes today at the Marriott Orlando World Center near Lake Buena Vista.

California Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday rejected a call from the U.S. Interior Department to conduct joint tests on the safety of the Mojave Desert site where the state wants to build a low-level nuclear waste dump. In a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Wilson said the state would proceed with its study on the site for the proposed Ward Valley dump for radioactive waste from hospitals, universities and biotechnology companies.

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Russia has agreed to take 21/2 tons of spent fuel from a closed Serbian nuclear reactor to ensure the radioactive waste does not end up in terrorist hands, Serbia's science minister said Monday. About 8,000 spent fuel rods from the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Vinca, outside Belgrade, will be transported under a $10 million deal signed last week, Science Minister Aleksandar Popovic said.

Common-sense rule #1 -- Do not create tons of deadly radioactive waste that humans will be responsible for safely maintaining for more than 100,000 years. Supporting fact #1 -- The General Accounting Office cited the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in March for losing track of radioactive waste from three different nuclear plants. Common-sense rule #2 -- Don't make the same mistake twice. Supporting fact #2 -- Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were clear and present warning bells. Countries such as Denmark, Spain, Italy, Greece, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Ireland have all phased out their nuclear programs or are in the process.